Anthropology, History, Linguistics, and Politics brewed together into one heady concoction.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Global Happy T-Shirts Surprising

English
has become the world’s lingua franca, but this doesn’t mean that English
speakers in places like Liverpool and Los Angeles have the last word on how the
language is used. A lot of non-native
speakers use the vocabulary of English in seemingly haphazard ways, at least
this is the impression I’ve been getting as I look at t-shirts during my
travels.

It
may be that the writing I’ve seen on t-shirts in places like Hong Kong, Beijing
and Istanbul carries a meaning too subtle for me to grasp. Or, it may be that the manufacturers of these
t-shirts are just tossing together English words and phrases just because they
are English, with no regard for their meaning.
For a long time English has been considered “cool” in many parts of the
world, just as Chinese characters are coming to be seen as cool in the West today,
and so t-shirt manufacturers and wearers may simply be tapping into English because of the cool factor.

I
first noticed this widespread use of arbitrary English phraseology when I lived
in Hong Kong in 1974. One popular t-shirt
design of that era carried two English phrases.
On the left shoulder was “Sunshine on My Shoulder,” and in
the center was emblazoned “A Safe Home is a Happy Home.”

I
have no objection to either of these sentiments, but it struck me as odd to see
them thrown together in the form of a dual t-shirt message.

When
I lived in Qingdao in 1993 I began to suspect that some of the t-shirt
designers were being ironically subversive when I saw several young men wearing
shirts with silhouettes of soccer and basketball players, underwritten with the
phrase “Boys and Their Balls.”

But
I eventually concluded that the double entendre was entirely unintentional.

I
would have thought that by now, given the many millions of Chinese who have thoroughly
mastered English, that t-shirt phrases in China would begin to make sense in a
way that native English speakers could appreciate. But no.
It is still the case that a good deal of the English of Chinese t-shirts
gives the impression that their authors are contriving meaning for their own
purposes without regard for the bafflement their phrases engender in native English
speakers. And the wearers of these
t-shirts don’t seem concerned with their meanings either. This was certainly the case of this young
man, whom I saw and photographed in the Chongqing Railroad station.

(Do You Marry Me?)

When
I asked him what he meant by the message on his t-shirt, he told me he didn’t
know what it said.

Here’s
another one, this one bilingual:

The English says "Just You Known."

The
Mandarin means something like “That which you understand”

Another
one (Incomprehensible even when all the words are visible):

A
few t-shirts did make a kind of recognizable sense, for example:

Though
they didn’t always say things that a Westerner would expect to see on a
t-shirt:

(It Is True!)

I
should also mention the Muammar Gaddafi t-shirts I saw for sale, though these
didn’t carry any captions:

And here are some more phrases that I saw on t-shirts in China. These I didn’t bother to photograph.

Nobody Seems

To Understand

The Nature of

The Project

SHINY(The
word "shiny" was inscribed in shiny letters)

Tea Coffee Or Me (M in a large heart-shape)

(This
one was worn by a pregnant woman and seemed to answer the very question it
asked.)

The
following was also worn by a pregnant woman and could be interpreted as a plea
for more information about the baby’s father:

Karl Who?

Maybe
it was Karl who wore the following t-shirt, which would explain why he’s gone
underground:

Imagine Someone

That Never Stops

Talking

These
next four could have formed a conversational set:

Stop and Think

Minniemouse

I Didn’t

Shady Lady

All the

Wild Times

Gone

Finally:

Super

Cutegirl

Littlefriend

Dance

The Wind

Lives Eternity

Love Smile

Enjoy Your

Date Style

SIMPLE

(automobile
image here)

And,
the most baffling of all:

QY ZD

T Shirt

We Trust

Well,
if English is going to be the world’s language, I guess we’ll have to get used
to the world putting it to its own uses.
Bricolage, anyone?